Junior Nationals
Over for another year
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The NZ Junior Nationals are over. Those that couldn’t take part because of injury, those that didn’t quite qualify, those that didn’t do as well as they expected, will all have to wait another year for another chance at national glory.
Tokoroa hosted the 2011 3 day event. There was outstanding riding, clear cut winners and nail-biting finishes. Micah McGoldrick and Hamish Harwood started the final race 5 on equal points in the 15-16 125cc class. Almost professional Micah was triumphant but Hamish was not too unhappy with his second place as he won the 14-16 250cc title as well. Courtney Duncan kept Chase Smith behind her for 4 of the 5 races and took out the 85cc 13-16 years title. Josiah Natzke and Maximus Purvis were unstoppable in the 11-12 years and 8-10 years 85cc classes and Australian Jesse Dobson cleaned up the 12-14 years 125cc class.
There was an odd moment of drizzle but in general the weather was fine and so was the track - at the beginning. However, grumbles were heard as the event progressed because of the decision not to groom the track at all during the 3 days of racing. With 76 races on the programme, it was inevitable that the track would get very, very rough and it would be a hard weekend. Comments included "deep ruts and very few lines left" , "far too many ambulance trips", "is the MNZ logo really Safe, Fun and Fair Motorcycling?", " rough tracks might be good practice for overseas but how many of these riders will be doing that?" and "my boy is still tiny, size-wise and doesn't have the strength of the big guys to cope with such ruts".
But others could see the positives. "It was rough but not dangerous rough". "It was a good skill tester to bring the best riders out", "Hard on the kids, wore them out but the rougher track meant it wasn't only a good start and a fast bike that counted".
The only local rider with a podium finish was Jordan Milsom who gained second place in the 8-10 85s. His first race was his worst. He went down 3 times but came up fighting. He did have some good luck in benefiting from the bad luck of others. One rival had a DNF with a blown engine and another broke a shoulder bone. However, Jordan rode well and his fitness level, helped by his other sporting activities, was obvious. His head swelling is slowly coming down, according to his Dad.
Jovhann Phillips was riding on full adrenalin all weekend. He started from the back as usual but "rode out of his skin" to finish 10th overall in the 11-12 years 85s. He was held back by a disastrous 32nd place in race 3. He had been in 9th place with 1.5 laps to go when he hit a hole in a fast place and that was that.
In the same class, Tyler Steiner had a mixed weekend but finished 18th overall after qualifying 25th and then clawing himself upwards race by race to 13th position in race 5. Trent Haywood qualified 22nd but couldn’t quite convert that result into a race result and finished 38th.
In the 13-16 85cc class, Cameron Forlong (#640 holeshot in the photo above) did not have a good weekend. He qualified 3rd only 2.7 seconds behind Courtney Duncan but only managed to repeat that effort in the final race due to a series of misfortunes - a punctured tyre in race 1, taken out by a fellow rider in race 2 (a purple flag protest incident), arm injuries from race 2 requiring voltaren and ice for race 3 and a last lap crash with another rider while lying 3rd in race 4. A determined Cameron did finish on a high note , 3rd in race 5 but a 9th overall, for him, is a tad disappointing. click here for Cam's full report. In the same class, Lee Ormsby had his best race in race 1 with a 17th place and finished a creditable 24th overall.
In the 125cc 12-14 years, Aaron Wiltshier qualified 3rd, had two top 5 finishes but did not compete on day 3 due to a cracked shoulder blade sustained in race 3. He had been riding smoothly, tracking well but hit a big rut which catapulted him end over end into injury. However Aaron still finished 13th. Matt Kenyon who qualified 14th and rode consistently with a few offs for a 10th equal place overall was happy with his results.
In the 125cc 15-16 years, Logan Blackburn, in his farewell event as a junior, highsided in race 1 and hurt an old shoulder injury which proved a handicap on days 1 and 2. However he managed to sandwich three 4th places between a 12th and a 3rd which gave him 5th position overall. Garth Amrein had a 4th, a 5th, 2 6ths and an 8th to give him 6th overall. Cam McCaskie qualified 30th but raised his game to 20th for 3 of the races but a couple of lower placings left him at 28th overall. "I think I went a bit crazy and didn't ride enough to the conditions", he says, in partial explanation of his 5 offs in one race. Max Emett rode consistently and finished in 30th position."It was pretty close going at times, but I only fell off once" he reports happily. Quite an achievement considering the track conditions.
Although several of our local riders finished outside the top 10, their efforts are not to be sneezed at. There were up to 60 riders in a class. Hayden Rumble missed out by 2 seconds on the qualifying for the 125cc classes but went on to win three of the support class races and get 2nd in the 4th. Thomas Forlong also just missed out on qualifying for the 85s. He raced well to get up as far as 3rd in his support class races.
Full race results are on www.mylaps.com and Andy McGechan has event reports on www.bikesportnz.com
Above photo is by MadMax photography.
